There was one glorious decade at the end of the 20th century when there was a Blockbuster video on every street corner, filled with the most badass movies you could ever hope to take home for three days at a stretch. We’re talking the best of the best (and worst of the worst) in home video. It was a time when indie flicks that never showed at the local megaplex to foreign titles to “is it real?” faux documentaries stood side-by-side with big budget films.
Those were the days.
Netflix’s Fistful of Vengeance (releasing this Thursday, February 17th) feels like it would have been right at home on the New Releases shelf alongside so many of those beloved movies. Take the best aspects of those films, throw them together, and update them for audiences 25 years later and you’re at the heart of Fistful of Vengeance.
Fistful of Vengeance is the follow up to Netflix’s Wu Assassins series released back in the summer of 2019. Like the series, the film stars Lewis Tan (Lu Xin), Iko Uwais (Kai the super powered Wu Assassin), and Lawrence Kao (Tommy) as three friends on a mission in Thailand to avenge the mysterious death of Tommy’s sister Jenny. The film lays out that backstory quickly as it jumps right into the action from the get go, with the three taking out supernatural chi vampires in their quest to find out who killed Jenny. Their mission twists and turns as the three are put on a path to kill an ancient deity hellbent on destroying the world.
Seriously, that’s the plot, and that’s about as detailed as it gets. This isn’t an origin story, it’s a tale picked up as close to the start of the action as possible. That’s not a bad thing. We’re not here for backstories nor the trials and tribulations of these characters becoming who they are — you can check out Wu Assassins for all of that. We’re here to watch them kick ass, and they do that in spades. That said, if you’re not caught up with the series (which I encourage you to do, but isn’t required homework for the movie) it does make the allies and enemies they encounter along the way feel a little too convenient and coincidental. There’s one character, Zan, who the trio encounters at the end of act one that they clearly have a history with, but we don’t get even a sniff of what that history might be until the character returns to confront Kai in their act three battle. If you want the full story, this is where having watched Wu Assassins is helpful, but they really do give you everything you need to know by the end of the movie. Or, you can turn off those thoughts; all you really need to know is right there on the screen — these two are going to fight again and it’s going to be pretty cool.
Sure, some of the story and character beats feel a little rushed. Who cares? You can’t really expect the film to pause for a moment to flesh out these characters and all their emotional baggage when there’s clearly more ass to kick right around the corner. No, the movie doesn’t slow down long enough for the characters to figure out that this is some pretty unbelievable bullshit (which, to their credit, the writers do let the characters realize that it’s all pretty messed up, even if they don’t give the characters time to slow down and think about it). Stopping to think about the plot would certainly shatter the suspension of disbelief. The director knows this. Everyone involved knows exactly what this movie is, and while all of them take their craft seriously, none of them take the movie too seriously. They take it at face value and keep moving forward, trusting the audience to come along for the ride.
Speaking of the craft of making this movie, don’t think for a second that the fact that this is a fun little martial arts flick with a sort of absurd plot means that this film is somehow “lesser”. This movie is beautifully shot and produced. Much of the film feels like Bad Boys era Michael Bay, as if the lenses, filters, and color palette Bay used were up for sale and director Roel Reiné picked them up for a steal. The colors pop through the filters, giving the street market and village scenes a vibrancy you wouldn’t expect to find. The action is choreographed and shot amazingly. With so many fight scenes, it would be easy for the audience to get lost and confused with what’s going on… an issue that has plagued films made by major studios with much higher budgets. That is never the case here; while the fights themselves may appear chaotic and involve a large group of actors and stuntpersons, it’s always clear to the audience exactly what’s going on, which is a testament to the attention that all involved paid to how the beautiful fight choreography played out on the screen.
The cast is insanely cool and charismatic. Tan and Uwais do much of the heavy lifting in terms of character work, with Tan playing the more brash and cocksure Lu to Uwais’s quiet and confident Kai. Pearl Thusi is a revelation as the buff and beautiful Interpol agent who has a history with Lu. By the movie’s end, I want nothing more than to spend time with these characters on some other farfetched mission, and Fistful of Vengeance does a good job of teasing the audience with just that. If Netflix isn’t going to give us Wu Assassins season 2, then I’d happily take a Fistful film series continuing the story.
Netflix seems to have solidified its hold on the action-adventure original movies niche, from Extraction to Gunpowder Milkshake to Red Notice. Now, they can add Fistful of Vengeance to that list. Be sure to check it out when the movie releases this Thursday, February 17th and let us know what you think of Fistful of Vengeance in the comments below.
